


some things remain unchanged

by perennials



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, kagura and shinpachi have been aged down, not very romantic but plenty in the family interactions department if that's your thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 09:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5580799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shoujo romance tropes are terribly overused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some things remain unchanged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guycecil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guycecil/gifts).



> I hope this is to your liking, Morgan (and I hope it is ohkay to call you that)!! Thank you for agreeing to a trade with me. (^":

Kagura’s the sort of bright, curious kid that elementary school teachers are inexplicably fond of, the kind that climbs the fence of an unsuspecting person's backyard and ~~steals~~  picks flowers to present them to similarly confused strangers on the street with a charming, bashful smile. Whenever they go out (which is fairly often, because Gintoki’s not big on making grocery lists and Kagura eats enough for a family of seven and a half), she skips energetically ahead, soaking in every detail of her surroundings like it’s her first time venturing out into the outside world with huge, sparkling eyes. She’s impulsive and stubborn and packs a sturdy punch that can send someone five foot nine flying, and people _love_ her. There's nothing that perturbs her and nothing that she's not fond of in some way or another, so it's to no one’s surprise, really, that she has a penchant for bringing home all manners of knickknacks and trinkets, ranging from glittery, chipped rhinestones to dead snails with cracks in their shells.

Gintoki supposes he _should_ have anticipated that one day she’d bring home something- or someone- alive. He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, is all.

“Gin-chan, I kidnapped someone today!” Kagura declares proudly one afternoon as she steps into the living room.

“Good for you.” Gintoki doesn’t bother glancing up from his Jump magazine.  

“We went to the playground and I beat 'em on the swings, uhuh."

“Great."

“Wanna see my cottage?"

"You mean, 'hostage'."

"Wanna see my hostage?"

“No.” Gintoki turns the page.

The next thing he knows, Kagura has teleported across the room to the sofa he’s sprawled horizontally across and is pinching his cheek, hard. “Look,” she orders.

Gintoki reluctantly turns his head to face her, his cheek muscles still stretched uncomfortably tight. Kagura's cheeks are pink, there's sweat beading on the tip of her nose (he's going to have to get her to wipe that off later), and she’s holding hands... With a duck?

He might have been less concerned had it been a boy wielding a glowing light saber that she'd brought back.

“Um. Who might you be?” Gintoki asks flatly. Kagura’s friend could, arguably enough, be called a duck, seeing how it possesses the trademark yellow beak and webbed feet, but at the same time something seems _very_ off about the small, bizarre creature. Its stoic, emotionless expression is jarring, to say the least.

The duck stares blankly at him.

Gintoki stares back.

“This is Eli!” Kagura answers in its stead. “I kidnapped her from school today.”

"You made a friend?"

"No, I _kidnapped_ her."

“Oh. Okay.” Gintoki resumes reading his Jump.

“That’s all you’re going to say…?” Kagura sounds disappointed.

Gintoki flicks his eyes back to her sullen face and pinches her cheek. "Mhmm."

"I'm going back to my room," Kagura huffs. She turns on her heel and Eli(zabeth?) trails quickly after her.

The door slams shut, and then there is silence once again. Every once in a while Gintoki hears suspicious sounds— something cracking, someone cackling, a peal of laughter— but he shrugs it off as Kagura being her usual self. Some time later he slips in to make sure no one’s dead, and is ungraciously shoved out of the room as soon as he ascertains that both kids are still alive. Getting to his feet with a lengthy sigh, Gintoki moves to his desk with a stack of papers and starts sifting halfheartedly through the contents.

At around six the doorbell is abruptly rung a few times in quick succession, after which Kagura pokes her head out of the room and whisper-yells at Gintoki not to answer. Blatantly disregarding her advice (and the daggers she’s shooting at his back), he idles over to the doorway. He peers through the peephole, furrows his eyebrows a little, and adjusts his glasses.

"Does your mom have long black hair, Eli?" Gintoki asks over his shoulder.

Eli gives a silent shake of her head.

"'S not them, then." He's about to head back inside when the doorbell goes off again.

"Let me in, or I'm calling the police!" Whoever is on the other side of the door has a voice that's a lot lower than Gintoki had expected, and one that's oddly familiar, too.

Gintoki chuckles dryly. "Says the one that's evidently trying to break into my house. I'll call the police on _you_ , damnit."

"You have my kid, don't you?"

"Haa?"

" _Elizabeth! Can you hear me? I'm coming to save you!"_

A sort of realization dawns on Gintoki, and he flips the latch open just as the person on the other side gives the door another dogged yank. In the blink of an eye he's out on the sidewalk, careening straight into them. Gintoki gropes around blindly (and, admittedly, expectantly) and to his utter ~~disappointment~~ surprise, realizes that the chest he'd expected to be soft and cushioned is flat and bony instead. Only then does it occur to him to look up at his unexpected visitor's face, and it’s just a matter of seconds before he manages to place the name in his head.

"Zura!" The word tastes a little foreign, doesn't quite fit around his lips the way it used to, almost as though he's grown to be too big for it.

"It's not Zura, it's—" Katsura stops and gawks at him. “Gintoki?”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure your name’s not Gintoki.” Gintoki chuckles and lets his head fall back onto Katsura’s chest with a thump. His button-up shirt is loosely tucked into his pants, and the fabric is comfortable against Gintoki’s cheek. “You came back,” he says quietly after a while.

“Of course I did, I said I would after-”

“Gin-chan, is that your girlfriend?” Kagura cuts in quizzically.

Catching sight of the two toddlers standing by the doorway, Katsura suddenly remembers that he has someone to rescue from the clutches of a great evil, and swiftly pushes Gintoki off, flailing limbs and uncharacteristically poignant expression and all, rushing ahead to where Kagura is standing with her arms wrapped protectively around Elizabeth. He squats down in front of her and asks her very seriously if he may have Elizabeth back, but Kagura crosses her arms and shakes her head with as much intimidation and confidence as a seven year-old with soft, round apple cheeks can muster.

“Five hundred dollars,” she demands.

“Ahh, I don’t have that much,” Katsura sighs as he rummages around in his wallet.

“Kaguraaaa,” Gintoki calls helpfully from the entrance while massaging a sore spot on his shoulder, “that’s too little. As a responsible kidnapper, you should ask for a larger amount.”

The ~~kidnapper-in-training~~ little kid contemplates Gintoki’s words for an instance, before seemingly coming to a conclusion. She holds up five fingers. “Five hundred hundred thousand million.”

Katsura puts his head in his hands. “Could you let me off with something easier?”

“What can you offer?” Kagura’s been watching too many late night yakuza movies with Gintoki, and it shows in her wide-legged stance and the defiant tilt of her chin.

“I can… cook?”

Kagura looks to Gintoki for approval. He shrugs.

“...Fine. But you still owe me.”

—

Shinpachi returns from club activities half an hour later. At the unsuspecting and innocent age of eleven, he's already accustomed himself to all of Gintoki's peculiar habits and doings, and doesn't seem particularly shocked to find a long-haired stranger with a strawberry print apron tied around their waist standing in the kitchen.

"Gin-san, did you finally get a girlfriend?" Shinpachi asks curiously as he drops his school bag on the floor and inhales the scent of steaming vegetables and soy sauce. He walks over to the counter and stares long and hard at Katsura. "How'd you convince her to date you?"

"It's not girlfriend, it's Katsura," Katsura says mildly, pulling a ladle out of the drawer.

"'M not dating him! Zura used to live round here; we sort of grew up together, is all." Gintoki's voice echoes gruffly out of the living room.

"Huh." Shinpachi sounds unimpressed. He gets up on tippy-toes and peers over the top of the counter. There’s a stray stalk of broccoli lying abandoned near the edge. “Can I have that?”

Katsura shrugs. “Sure, why not. It should be relatively safe to eat.”

“What’re you feeding my kids, aaa?”

“Vegetables are good for the body and soul,” Katsura replies.

—

The two highlights of dinner are as follows:

  1. Kagura scarfs down a first, second, third, fourth, fifth…nth bowl of Katsura’s cooking. (Unfortunately, solving for n would be impossible because they all lost track somewhere along the way, but the effort is what counts, right?)
  2. Katsura ties up his hair.



Kagura's eating habits are something they've all grown fairly used to, but today they succeed in getting a hugely exaggerated reaction from Katsura, who has never dealt with such a monstrous appetite before (he certainly wasn't vice-president of the drama club in high school for no reason). And Katsura, ever vigilant when it comes to hygiene-related matters, puts his hair in a neat ponytail and throws it over his shoulder claiming that the risk of it falling into his food is simply too high. This is noteworthy primarily because, with his hair securely bunched up, the smooth expanse of skin around the base of Katsura's neck is exposed (to the elements, and Gintoki's penetrating gaze). Gintoki almost breaks his teeth on his fork and gets dangerously close to stabbing a hole through Shinpachi’s arm once or twice, but aside from those unimportant little slip-ups, dinner finishes up relatively peacefully.

Katsura wants to leave right after that (you’re still growing, Elizabeth! You need to sleep!), but his resolve really isn’t as firm as he thinks it is, because he somehow ends up getting roped into a few rounds of Monolopy Deal and a couple of drinks to boot. The night ends with five hearts bitter from the shock of betrayal, the coffee table in the living room overturned, cards strewn all over the floor, and the house in ruins. Kagura and Elizabeth passed out on the sofa about half an hour ago, while the upper half of Katsura’s body is draped across the sofa arm beside them, a string of drool dangling from his lips. Shinpachi tucked himself into bed an hour before, and is the sole member of the household that’s actually asleep in a bed. On the other hand, Gintoki's the only one who seems to be in a remotely-decent state of alertness, so he takes it upon himself to wake the rest up up when the digital clock on the wall reads ten to midnight and no one’s so much as moved an inch. Kagura mumbles unintelligibly for a minute or so before lethargically climbing off the sofa and attaching herself to Gintoki, Elizabeth shoots straight up and follows Kagura to Gintoki’s side without so much as blinking, but Katsura only groans and slides further off the sofa arm.

“Get up,” Gintoki prods at Katsura’s limp form with his foot.

“ _Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh_.”

Gintoki tries to get him to budge a couple more times to no avail, and eventually resorts to slinging (a very drunk) Katsura’s arm over his shoulder. Although Katsura hiccups vaguely in protest, he makes no move to get off of him, and so the somewhat funny-looking party of four steps out into the cool night air and slowly starts down the street. Kagura has part of Gintoki’s left pant leg bunched up in her right fist and totters along sleepily beside him, abnormally quiet. Elizabeth is a similarly silent specter at her side.

“Where d’ya live?” Gintoki asks.

“Belmount street, blue patio,” Katsura lifts his head for the briefest of moments and slurs into Gintoki’s ear, his warm breath fanning out over his skin (Gintoki shivers, and not because it’s cold out).

“You serious? That makes us practically neighbors!” Gintoki can’t hide the amusement in his voice.

“Again.”

“Again,” Gintoki agrees. “I can’t believe you’re really back.”

“I can’t believe you have kids.” Katsura snorts into his side. “Who’s the mom?”

“I’unno. ’M not their biological father. _I_ , for one, can’t believe you have a duck. Who’d you do? _What_ ’d you do?”

“No one, thank you very much,” Katsura hiccups indignantly. “Sakamoto sent ‘er to me from Antarctica or somethin’.”

“Huh.”

Their conversation gradually tapers off, and by the time they arrive at Katsura’s the long-haired man is a dead weight on Gintoki’s shoulder. Luckily (for Katsura, who otherwise would have likely found himself unceremoniously dumped on the floor by the door), he jerks awake before he can be thrown off and fishes the keys out of his pocket.

“So, uh, I’ll see you around then, I guess.” Gintoki absentmindedly ruffles the top of Kagura’s head.

“Guess so.”

Kagura waves sluggishly at them until the door is gently pulled shut and the two of them are left standing on the doorstep in semi-darkness.

 

—

 

"Not a shoujo manga protagonist anymore, are you?" Gintoki strokes his chin thoughtfully. "You're more of a josei heroine now."

Katsura frowns at him in clear disapproval.

“I mean, you’ve even got flowers in your hair and everything. It’s perfect.” Gintoki smirks at him.

Katsura wants to bite back a snarky response, but Kagura's enthusiastically shoving twigs and leaves and the occasional flower into the messy braid she's made out of his hair, and the prospect of souring her mood isn’t a sweet one. “Well." He sighs in defeat. “They _are_ nice flowers.”

Kagura beams.

“Anyway,” Katsura continues, “if I’m the heroine, then what are you? A chunk of dirt by the side of the road?”

“Zura, so _coooold—_ ”

“-The third wheel of the love triangle that everyone knows will get kicked out of the plot eventually?”

“Nooooo—”

“Then?”

“I’m gonna go catch some snails,” Kagura announces cheerfully, bounding off in the opposite direction.

Katsura doesn’t get the chance to register the full implication of her words because Gintoki takes the opportunity to lean forward and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I’m the hero, of course.” He smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the usual stuff: kudos and comments are cool.  
> also: this is the first time i've written something over 2k words in many years.  
> finally: i tried vv hard but if i missed any typos/errors drop a comment down below and i'll get right to it 
> 
> have a good one guys


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